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Mark 1:17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

Everyone knows this scripture. But do you know what it MEANS? In detail? What does a fisher do, exactly?

He puts a lure down. Something the fish want. He doesn’t catch every fish in the sea on his lure. Only those that are interested in what he has to offer. Some days, the fish just don’t bite. Other days, they do. But he is still fishing the same way, with the same bait. Remember this analogy, we will come back to it later.

When you tell people that they are wrong, and need to REPENT, the vast majority will simply hate you for telling them, justify themselves in their own minds, and go their own way. These are the fish who didn’t take the bait.

On the other hand, some few will be interested, and nibble - and so you give them answers to their questions, until they either join the masses who rejected the truth, or repent. Ultimately, of these who are interested, some take the bait and remain true to it.

You might call these groups Called, Chosen, and Faithful if you like. The name isn’t important to us at the moment, only YOUR PART in helping to haul in the fish.

To show exactly what I mean, I’m going to quote two verses, where very similar things were spoken, and show the different reaction of the people… Read the rest of this entry »

Was Paul a saint? I don’t mean in the Biblical sense of the word saint, but more in the Catholic and Protestant sense of the word. See we are trained to picture the men of the Bible as supermen; people who were above our weaknesses, superior to us; untouchable.And while we may academically admit that they were men like us - as the Bible clearly records Paul saying “We also are men of like passions with you” (Acts 14:15) - still, it’s hard to realize that if they are on a pedestal, it is because they earned it. And that they had the same faults, the same temptations, and above all the same self-doubt, as we do.

If we don’t realize that they were like us, then we have no hope of attaining to their level. So today, I am going to prove that Paul was not a saint in the current religious sense; that he was a flawed human whose example should be followed only where he himself followed Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

God is honest about His heroes. He records history in the Bible, both flattering and unflattering incidents. Most historians trying to prove a point would have left out the story about David and Bathsheba - David himself would probably have preferred it were left out - but God included it, because we needed to know that great men make mistakes too, and are punished for it.

God didn’t need to mention that Abraham had weak faith and lied about his wife being his sister - well, half-lied since she was a half-sister - but God did. And Abraham did it twice, once after his conversion! (Genesis 12:13-19, 20:2-12) Even then the fear of his life prompted Abraham, father of the faithful, to lie to save his own hide!

And God didn’t have to record that Peter, who opened the gospel to the gentiles, was sinning and shunning the gentiles in order to favor the Jews (Galatians 2:11). The point is, God’s heroes were men; men subject to all the same weaknesses and stupidities that we are. But this article is about Paul… Read the rest of this entry »

Picture yourself. Thousands of years in the future, a king and priest in the family of God. Endowed with the nature and power of God, second in rank only to God the Father. You will be worshiped, and you will have every right to that worship. God says so.

Revelation 3:9 …behold, I WILL MAKE THEM to come and WORSHIP before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

Of course, now, you are no where near deserving of that. You haven’t overcome. You haven’t conquered your own carnal nature. Even now that nature is pecking away at your resolve, searching for a chink in your armor so it can coerce you to rebel against God and fulfill its lusts. As long as that is the case, you can never be trusted with ultimate power - and therefore, cannot be worshiped as God is. Even Jesus, while He had that nature in Him, was not worthy of worship. Again, He said so.

Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou ME good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Of course, He was greater than we are, or any other man who had lived (Matthew 12:42). And He was perfect, and He ultimately proved that He COULD be trusted… And none of us have done that yet. Now, He has been resurrected, “born of God”, as we one day shall be, and the carnal nature no longer has any influence over His nature, for it has been replaced by the nature of God.

1 John 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

But even now, we will be worshiped at times - not worshiped as a God, but worshiped just for being right. Or for being wise, or wealthy, or any of the other things men respect. Christ even gave us specific instructions for HOW to be worshiped by men! … Read the rest of this entry »

Genesis 4:15 … And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.What was this mark? I’ve heard lots of fanciful answers - usually based on which races the person answering didn’t like the most - but no BIBLE answers. But there should be one, don’t you think? I mean, I know lots of people who believe that it was at this point that God gave Cain a hook-nose to make him the classic Jew. Many others believe that God made Cain black, to begin the black race.

But let’s face it, they made that up because they didn’t like Jews or Blacks or whatever race it was they were bashing at the time. There is not one hint nor shred of proof in the Bible or any other text to show that Cain received a hook-nose or dark skin or any PHYSICAL characteristic as a “Mark”.

So what is the REAL mark of Cain? What is the BIBLICAL explanation of this “mark”? To answer that, you first have to understand the situation a little better… Read the rest of this entry »

Where is your identity? What do you think of when you think “me”?

If you have to describe yourself, where do you start?

What would crush you the most if you were to lose it?

Most people define themselves by their “stuff”. In fact, I can scarcely name anyone I’ve met who isn’t the house, the car, the money, something. None of these people would admit that they are all about those things, but there can be no doubt that it is “for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” (Luke 6:45). The stuff coming out of your mouth, the stuff your mind always leans towards talking about, is who you think you are. If you always talk about the Dallas Cowboys it’s because you don’t really have a life of your own; Read the rest of this entry »

Having grown up as the youngest child, I have some experience with the life of a young sibling. Everyone says the baby has it easier than the older children do, but not too long ago I realized that the Bible has quite a bit to say on this subject. Why is it that the older child often turns out to be a dork, and the younger child winds up inheriting the blessings? We all know the examples of Esau and Jacob, and Ishmael and Isaac before them; but I’m willing to bet there are more examples in the Bible than you’ve noticed. And one in particular. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Deuteronomy 21:15-17 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

The firstborn has the right to the greater blessing - a blessing that is exactly twice what the other children have. But there is an unspoken condition on this blessing. If for some reason the firstborn is disobedient, he can be disqualified from his blessing… Read the rest of this entry »

Why did Satan fall?Didn’t you ever wonder? Oh I know, the Bible says his pride lifted Him up, but WHY? Why wasn’t he satisfied where he was? For that matter, where WAS he? And what did he hope to gain by being “Like the most High”?These questions are ALL reasonable, and ALL answerable with a Bible, some basic facts about the earth you live on, and a bit of thought. So let’s answer them, shall we?

In the beginning, God created the angels. He did this before the physical universe was created. This is proved by…

Job 38:4,6-7 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? … or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Obviously, to be singing and shouting at the creation of the earth, they had have been made before then. As proof that God created the being who became Satan, and that he was among these angels, we offer…

Ezekiel 28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

So Satan, or Lucifer as we will call him for the time being, was perfect from the day he was created(!), until something triggered his rebellion. I’ll get into the reasons he rebelled later, so for now suffice it to say that the reason he rebelled involved the earth. Therefore it is logical that he hadn’t rebelled before it was created… Read the rest of this entry »

This is an issue that isn’t very important in the western hemisphere. Nonetheless, for the globetrotters amongst us and those who value knowledge in any form, it becomes an interesting question. Few people in westernized nations eat mare’s milk, or the milk of camels. But a large portion of world does - from Morocco to Mongolia is a nearly unbroken stretch of land where one or both of those milks provide a staple of the diet. So is the milk of unclean animals unclean?It is natural to assume that since the animal is unclean, the milk is unclean also. But is it? Conclusions like that - ones which lead to you avoiding certain foods or actions - are “safe”. You’re less likely to go wrong if you simply don’t do something that might be a sin. But we are here to understand the law of God. Simply avoiding something because it might be wrong, when you have a way to prove one way or the other, is cowardly. So let’s find out - if an Arab offers you some camel cheese, do you decline, or chow down?

THE COMMAND

To begin with, we have to ask the most important question; if eating camel’s milk is a sin… where is the command? Read the rest of this entry »

There has always been a problem in the true church of God. How do you know who is a part of the church and who isn’t? Something that can draw a line between someone who believes everything God says but doesn’t keep Saturday? Or keeps all of the ten commandments but doesn’t keep the holy days? Or who keeps all of that, but eats unclean meats? Or who keeps the calendar on a different day than you do? Where is the line? What is that doctrine that sets the true Christian apart from everyone else?

I do not believe a clear answer to that question has been preached in recent centuries. Oh, I’ve heard many answers to the question - but none that all scripture would back up. But there is such an answer. There is a way to build a “holy spirit detector” that can unerringly tell you if someone has the holy spirit or not. Here is how… Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever asked yourself how the Devil feels about the plan of God? I mean, he is brilliant, clever, and has been around for a long time and has the Bible memorized. In fact, he was there when the Bible was written. So why does he hate it? What does he think of God’s plan to save mankind? What is he afraid of?And for that matter, what does he think of God, personally? If you were to ask Satan what God was like, what would he tell you? Granted, he might lie to you if it suited him, but if you could get him to tell you what he REALLY thinks, what would he say? From Satan’s point of view, what is God like?

If you’ve never considered it, take time to do so on your own before you continue reading. It’s worth it. What DOES Satan think of God? And how could you go about finding out?

The Bible is relatively quiet on the subject - but Satan isn’t. This is his world, you know. And if you read books, watch movies, and listen to tales and legends of ancient mythologies, you will see one common thread. A story as old as time. Well, almost.

Floating around our world, right under our very noses, are valuable nuggets of understanding. Understanding that explains both the far past and the distant future. As you probably know, anyone watching a given event or hearing a certain story will retell it a little differently. Ask any three people who witnessed a car crash, for example, and you’ll get three distinct stories - despite each of them being completely honest, they viewed and interpreted the facts differently, based on their frame of reference.

But how each of these three people interpreted this accident will, with some study, show insights into the character of each of them. And this process, if your goal was to get to know these three people, would be very worthwhile to you. And so now I want to show you something I learned from George Orwell’s book, “1984″. Maybe you’ve already read this book - but I doubt you noticed what I am about to show you, because I’m about to show you it’s application to the plan of God. Read the rest of this entry »